Books in Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers series

Climb aboard the earth for the adventure of a lifetime! As you travel, watch shadows move from here to there as day stretches into night, and feel the weather change as one season rolls into the next. All these amazing things happen because the earth is constantly in motion. Spinning and circling, gliding and tilting, as passengers of the earth, our voyage never ends!With poetic text and gorgeous illustrations, G. Brian Karas illuminates our earth and its cycles and does a brilliant job of making the concepts of rotation and revolution understandable to even the youngest readers.

Opposite the simple declarative sentence, "Walter was worried" is a portrait of a very worried Walter. But wait! The letters that spell out his feelings form his facial characteristics, as well as his expression. Gradually a simple story unfolds: the sky grows dark, the fog rolls in, lightning lights the sky, and thunder shakes the trees; Priscilla was puzzled, Shirley was shocked, Frederick was frightened... and eventually (when the sun came out) Henry was hopeful, and Elliot ecstatic.

The inimitable Simon James tells the heartening story of a duckling who makes a very useful discovery - and encourages the most tentative of us to take that first step, no matter how small.What do you do when you’re little and lost and your legs feel all wobbly? For one tiny duckling, the trick is doing "One Step," a surprising technique that enables him to walk under the tallest of trees and across the widest of fields. Using simple language and breezy, expressive illustrations, Simon James speaks directly to the heart of a child and shows that every journey, whatever the length, begins with a single step.

Everyone dreams of visiting the big city, with its bright lights, tall buildings, and millions and millions of people. One lucky girl named Izzy climbs in her stroller and rides through all the hustle and bustle, impressed by the sheer magnitude of everything she sees. Wow! City! is based on Izzy's real-life escapade, as page after page she is quoted verbatim. (Izzy was just learning to speak at the time.) Every illustration captures the grandeur, energy, and exuberance of Izzy's great adventure with her dad, in a book children will quickly learn by heart and ask to read over and over and over.

Wombats are cuddly-looking, slow-moving Australian animals. Their favorite activities are eating, sleeping, and digging holes. Here, in the words of one unusually articulate wombat, is the tongue-in-cheek account of a busy week; eating, sleeping, digging holes . . . and training its new neighbors, a family of humans, to produce treats on demand. This entertaining book, with its brief, humorous text and hilarious illustrations, will endear the wombat to young children, who may recognize in the determined furry creature some qualities that they share.

Catch this tigerAs he wanders from shore to field, a scaredy-cat tiger suddenly finds himself up a tree. "Get him! Net him! Tie him tight!" the local villagers say. But once they capture him, the villagers make a surprising decision about what to do with him - and soon the tiger is off and running again. Young readers can follow this simple, spunky adventure through vivacious verse, glowing orange-and-black pictures, and typography that soars right along with the tiger and his pursuers.

It's nap time on the farm, but one un-sleepy baby has a different plan... Will Baby do the cha-cha? Will Mama flip her wig? Will Baby dance the polka with a polka-dotted pig? Perfect fun for young children who like lively stories, this happy tale invites all to join in and dance along. Read, sing, lift the flaps, do a little jip-and-twirl! It's a toe-tappin', no-nappin' good time when baby starts to boogie.

A breathtaking illustrated novel from Pura Belpre Award winner, Pam Ryan, and MacArthur fellow and three-time Caldecott Honoree, Peter Sis!From the time he is a young boy, Neftalí hears the call of a mysterious voice. Even when the neighborhood children taunt him, and when his harsh, authoritarian father ridicules him, and when he doubts himself, Neftalí knows he cannot ignore the call. Under the canopy of the lush rain forest, into the fearsome sea, and through the persistent Chilean rain, he listens and he follows. . . Combining elements of magical realism with biography, poetry, literary fiction, and sensorial, transporting illustrations, Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís take readers on a rare journey of the heart and imagination.